Nonlinear Pedagogy and its Relevance for the New PE Curriculum

Research Investigators

Nonlinear Pedagogy and its Relevance for the New PE Curriculum

Project Number
OER 21/14 CJY

Project Duration
February 2015 - July 2018

Status
In-Progress

Abstract
This project aims to examine how Nonlinear Pedagogy can change existing practice with a strong interventionist focus to support the teaching and learning of invasion game skills and fundamental movement skills (FMS) for the new Singapore PE syllabus. Typically, teaching approaches in PE tend to be top-down and overly prescriptive (Direct Instructions). Nonlinear
pedagogy, with its strength in facilitating exploratory learning that is student centred and facilitative rather than overly prescriptive, can potentially meet the objectives of the new PE syllabus. Specifically, nonlinear pedagogy emphasizes theneed to design representative and facilitative type of learning supported by principles in understanding the nonlinearity features of human learning. The use of the new PE syllabus as a case of investigation for this proposed research program will be novel and timely to enhance teaching and learning processes in PE and sports. This project specifically aims to i) determine the effectiveness of nonlinear pedagogy in the teaching and learning of an invasion game; ii) examine the effectiveness of transfer of games skills across games within the same game category (i.e., invasion game) with a nonlinear pedagogical approach and iii) determine the effectiveness of nonlinear pedagogy in the teaching and learning of FMS. The findings from this project has relevant implication on how the new PE syllabus can be further enhanced and on how teacher education can be refined for the teaching of invasion games as well as FMS in Singapore schools.